Wotwiki:Chapter summaries
Location Chapter summaries on should be easy to locate, reference, and update, yet remain unobtrusive. We have begun using subpages of the respective book. Note that subpages have been disallowed on Wikipedia in favor of categories, but they seem to make sense for our purposes. You can see this under the Chapter summaries heading in any of the Book stub articles, for example The Great Hunt#Chapter summaries. The summaries themselves, of course, still mostly need to be done. You can help! Using templates and substitution can be used to provide easy reference links, e.g. is shorthand for The Eye of the World, Chapter 3. *'If you know how to make branching templates, please help!': Template:if from WP is looking interesting --Gherald 00:10, 29 Oct 2005 (UTC) A list of book templates is available, but they are simply created from the initials of the title, all in lowercase: teotw, loc, apod, etc. Layout We are working on a reference layout, which uses Template:Summary The layout used in the first summaries is as follows: note: not all sections are necessary for all chapters =''chapter title goes here= ( body of summary ) Characters Places Items Other options or layouts are welcome. As of yet, there is no template for this structure, since it is so fluid. For ongoing attempts, follow * TEotW Prologue * * We need to come up with a Template: that will allow including the following in a standardized way: * Chapter Title * Chapter Icon * POV the chapter begins with * Category:Chapter summaries Suggestions are welcome; for now include this information as: ='Chapter Title'= And don't fret over the chapter icon and categorization (since the template will automagically take care of those later). *How would we go about linking Chapter 1's summary to the Prologue and Chapter 2, say, with arrows somewhere? 05:23, 27 Oct 2005 (UTC) ** Still thinking about that; right now my best idea is to move the list of chapters from the main book page to a etc. templates that can be included in corresponding summaries. I hate how EWoT only lets you navigate with those arrows (which, incidentally, should also be AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE, since that is what one is looking at when one is ready to move on to the next chapter....) --Gherald 18:07, 27 Oct 2005 (UTC) *** How about a box, sort of like how Wikipedia does for Kings, Popes, Presidents, etc.? Dairhenien 18:33, 27 Oct 2005 (UTC) **** It can easily be boxed horizontally like the proposal box at the top of this page. Are you advocating a sidebar like this (hang on, I'm still working on it): ----- ----- * Actually, I wasn't thinking that, but I like it. If it were small enough, it would be great to be able to select any chapter from a given book immediately. Dairhenien 19:28, 27 Oct 2005 (UTC) ** Now multiply it by 50+ though, for the early books, 40 for the later...at that rate, you might as well transclude the Chapter summaries section from the book page, however that ends up getting formatted. I was envisioning something like: Chapter 6: Threads Woven of Shadow Chapter 5 < (maybe chapter icon, again) > Chapter 7 ** Or something. nae'blis (talk) 19:44, 27 Oct 2005 (UTC) *** You can transclude individual sections with #? That's cool. I was thinking the chapter summaries sections one every book page would be obsoleted by this chapter summaries box on the left. Note that this would be a compound template: the chapter sommaries for each books will have their own template:teotw chapters or whatever, which uses template:infobox chapters. **** Errrr, no. I was implying that we could move the Chapter summaries navigation section entirely into a template, if we were wanting to include it on every chapter. But it'd be just as easy (and less work on the server) to c/p it into each one, too... nae'blis (talk) 04:21, 28 Oct 2005 (UTC) *** Sure, that can be done as part as the standard header (and footer, if that can't be done on the same one) template we need still need to work out. But I still think every chapter summary in a book should have some sort of link to every other chapter in the book. Yeah, 50 lines long, or very wide like what we currently have on the book stubs, but definitely worthwhile.... (it's one of the things I hate the most about EWoT; how hard it is to jump between chapters without relying on back/forward browsers buttons. And their frames... Grrrrr.) ::: That's kind of what I had originally intended, but executed much more deftly than I could have. I like the idea of using the chapter icons. The only difficulties I can see is the special "Ravens" chapter appearing between the Prologue and Chapter 1 of TEotW in its two volume young adult version. Should we link Chapter 1 back only to Ravens, or also back to the Prologue? Dairhenien 19:47, 27 Oct 2005 (UTC) :::: No idea what to do with "Ravens" - maybe some sort of (parenthetical) navigation? Linking Anything unique to The Wheel of Time deserves to be linked the first time it is referenced in an article. First appearances The first time we meet a character, the plot summary should link to their full name, like: Nynaeve al'Meara Elaida do Avriny a'Roihan Later appearances Future appearances in other chapters should be listed using one of the following syntaxes: STYLE #1 [[article name|''name used most frequently in the chapter]] In general, this is prefered if it is the significantly most common way to refer to something. '''Examples:' Mat Thom STYLE #2 [[article name]] - as some special name used in the chapter In general, this is for lesser used titles and categorizations. The Dark One - as Great Lord Thom - as the gleeman STYLE #3 For major characters who's POV we see often or who have particularly ridiculous names, it is permisible to use a redirect in drafts: Nynaeve Elaida But later improvements to the summary should flesh it out with a direct link, because this makes the "What links here" feature in the toolbox on the left more useful. Quantifiers These should be used often if applicable, especially in lists of occurances at the bottom of an article, but they should go before links, not in them things or categories there are many of but of which only one appears in the chapter should be prefixed accordingly. Examples: A Myrddraal - as a Fade An Aiel A few Taraboner commoners Some Trollocs 3 grolm Unique things or very important titles there are only one of should be prefixed with "the ", for instance: the Dark One Categorization If a major battle takes place, add Category:Battles at the bottom. Categories for other major and minor events such as smaller skirmishes are still being worked out. You can help at project:category index. : Why just battles? What about arguments, kisses, and new horses? Not sure I understand the goal here... nae'blis (talk) 18:27, 27 Oct 2005 (UTC) ::Do you seriously think those notable enough to categorize? I don't, but I think battles are worth categorizing, so we have a list of them... maybe you think we should have an article about Battles that links to the corresponding summaries, instead? --Gherald 00:38, 29 Oct 2005 (UTC) Quotations Proposal: Each individual summary should contain at least one quotation at the top of the page using this syntax: Depending on the type of quote, source can be of the form: firstname lastname Or ommited entirely. Just be sure to include the "|" after the text being quoted. : I like it, but I'm not sure how you'd quote something that no one said. nae'blis (talk) 18:27, 27 Oct 2005 (UTC) :: I made a change to template:quote and rephrased the above. Does it make more sense now? Here are some examples, anyway: